The controlling family living next door to Lester and
Carolyn Burnham (Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning) provides the crucial plot
twist in this 1999 Best Picture Oscar winner. Chris Cooper plays Col. Frank
Fitts, an ultra-rigid, abusive ex-Marine married to a near-catatonic wife and
dominating a secretive son. (1999)More
about the movie. Adapted from Alan
Ball's screenplay.

Robert Duvall plays Marine Lt. Bull Meecham who brutalizes
his four children, especially his oldest, 18-year-old Ben (Michael O'Keefe). Duvall and
O'Keefe were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. (1979)More
about the movie.Adapted fromPat Conroy's
novel

In this poignant subplot of Robin William's portrayal of
life at an upper-crust boy's prep school, Kurtwood Smith is the coldly calculating father
of Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), who yearns to follow his love of acting despite his
father's threats. Won Best Screenplay Oscar. (1989) More
about the movie. Adapted from N. H. Kleinbau's
book

A heart-wrenching story of four Chinese-American mothers and
daughters as they cope with tragic pasts and hopeful futures. Rosalind Chao,
Tamlyn Tomita, Ming-Na Wen and Lauren Tom star as the adult daughters. (1993)More
about the movie. Adapted fromAmy Tan's
novel

Nick Nolte gives a rich performance as a middle-aged
football coach confronting the devastating impact his Cultlike, Abusive
upbringing had on his suicidal artist sister (Melinda Dillon) as well as on
himself. Barbra Steisand directs and stars as Dillon's New York psychiatrist.
(1991) More
about the movie. Adapted fromPat
Conroy's novel

Susan Sarandon plays an unpredictable, Smothering, sometimes
Childlike single mother who takes up the emotional oxygen in her relationship
with her teenage daughter, played by Natalie Portman. (1999)More
about the movie. Adapted fromMona Simpson's
novel

Ray Milland is Oliver Barrett III, the disapproving and
imposing father of Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O'Neal), who breaks from
his father's control over his love for his wife, Jenny (Ali McGraw). (1970) More
about the movie. Adapted fromErich Segal's
novel

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Toby, a 13-year-old
son of a single mother (Ellen Barkin) who moves in with a hot-tempered oddball
(Robert DeNiro) who turns out to be chillingly abusive to Toby. (1993)More
about the movieBased onTobias
Wolff's Memoir

Natalie Portman won the best actress
Oscar for her riveting performance as a ballerina tragically driven by her
own demons and by her darkly perfectionistic and overbearing mother, played
brilliantly by Barbara Hershey. (2010)
More about the movie.

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